A Simulation of an Experiment to Measure the Initial State Helicity Correlation in Wide Angle Compton Scattering

Many powerful tools have been developed in an attempt to describe nuclear interactions at various energy levels. It is clear that perturbative Quantum ChromoDynamics (pQCD) dominates at sufficiently high energy, whereas the "Handbag" model involving a single interacting quark dominates at sufficiently low energy. It is not clear which model is appropriate at energies of 1-10 GeV. The Initial State Helicity Correlation in Wide Angle Compton Scattering (WACS) experiment will shed light on this subject by measuring the polarization observable ALL at - t = 6.4 GeV (QCM = 140 deg) and at - t = 2.4 GeV (BCM = 70 deg). In advance of this experiment a Monte-Carlo simulation using the Geant4 toolkit was used to examine various aspects of the experiment design. It was shown that the goals of this experiment, as laid out in its proposal, can be met using the available equipment and in the proposed amount of time. There is also evidence that the Monte-Carlo will prove useful as an analysis tool after the experiment has run.

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